i believe its because he was always like this PLUS he was feted and loved by liberals for saying Obama was going to win and then he got really bitter when he stopped getting all the invites and being adored when he started delivering bad news.
Having lots and lots of people telling you you're a genius is really bad for you. I'm serious. Believing your own press, losing a healthy sense of your own fallibility and getting hooked on public approval and admiration fucks with people's heads, even people who start out relatively stable.
i actually think his trajectory is less like other online radicalization stories and more like the Freakonomics “once you get a taste of success off contrarianism now everything is about misreading data and statistics to prove the experts wrong”
Someone mentioned Malcolm Gladwell in another comment, and I can't help thinking about how he ended up getting to the point where he was wrote a book lionizing the masterminds of the Allied air campaign in WWII.
His brain got cooked when he was the only one showing sub-90% win odds for Clinton yet somehow became the poster child for "bad predictor" instead of Sam Wang
Made some big changes to their models late in the campaign that increased Trump's odds IIRC, which made them look sooo much worse. It's just not a good idea to do that late and if you're doing it any time after campaigning for the General Starts you need to write out your explanation first.
his style is basically "divorced midwest RWNJ dad with acrimonius relationship with children" irrespective of his actual sexual preferences or where he lives
Some people have a tendency to play the devil's advocate all the time. For "smart people" I think this sometimes morphs into chronic contrarianism. Might also be the $$$. Not mutually exclusive.
Comments
How did I not know this about him
How not to be a contrarian https://on.ft.com/3AKsxVu
Letter: Covid and Drucker’s first rule of decision-making https://on.ft.com/3T95Tw6
*whispers* Freakonomics...